You Actually Think They're Going To Find Bigfoot?
So.
I dig Bigfoot. Have ever since I saw the Bigfoot episode of In Search Of. I've got a shelf full of books on cryptozoology. I've exchanged emails with Loren Coleman. I know who Jeff Meldrum is. I have promised to take two small boys "Bigfoot hunting" (read: walking around a local park with a camera) at earliest opportunity. I find the question of the possible existence of unknown large primates to be an interesting scientific issue. I know multiple people who claim to have seen Bigfoot or one of his near relations, and I find their stories interesting.
I also watch Finding Bigfoot.
I do not do this in hopes of seeing the cast of the show actually find a sasquatch. I know this will not happen. I know this because it is a television series, and thus its main goal is to ensure continued production. That means more episodes wherein our four noble squatchers go to various locations, talk to various people, and fail to find Bigfoot. Indeed, one might note that their methodology - short investigations with camera crews, sticking to roads, not putting up trailcams for extended surveys of a particular area, repeatedly yowling at each other to the point where no self-respecting sasquatch would be able to get a word in edgewise, setting off fireworks, hauling a baboon into the woods, and inviting sasquatches to a rave. The plan for next week's episode - apparently it's using a Girl Scout troop as bait - buries the needle on the Batshit-o-crazy meter, unless Bobo's right and sasquatches really love Thin Mints that goddamned much.
No, I watch it for entertainment value. I watch it for the goofy situations and the earnest believerhood of cast member Cliff and the puffed-up frothing of cast member Matt and the weary skepticism of cast member Ranae and the plain old whackadoodle of cast member Bobo. I watch it for folks trying to guess how tall something they think they saw in the dark three years prior might be, and I watch it for the sheer hilarity of watching Matt step all over his castmates in an effort to shore up his alpha male status. William Shatner used to line-count Star Trek scripts; Moneymaker line-counts sasquatch calls per episode, and nobody's allowed to howl like a wolverine gargling Top Job more than he is. And I find this hilarious, to the point where I live-tweet the show under the hashtag #FindingBigfoot, because, hey, it's a popular show and there are lots of other people out there doing the same, and social media signal amplification and all that good stuff. Honestly, most of the tweets are either from true believers or are in the same vein of gentle ribbing that I enjoy; there's about a half dozen fake Sasquatch accounts mixed in there for good measure.
But here and there, there's some folks mixed in who take things very seriously, and who are genuinely offended that the team has not yet delivered on the nonexistent promise to find Bigfoot. They are righteous, I tell you, and they are mad, and God dammit, they expect a scientific mystery decades old to be solved before the first commercial break, verifiable evidence be damned.
To which I say: God help you people, because you're missing the point. This is entertainment. The point is not to find Bigfoot. The point is to amuse us couch potatoes with the NVG-ed up misadventures of these sasquatch-hunting Beatles (Bobo = Ringo, fer sure) week after week with a formula. Real research into seriously attempting to find evidence of a large hominid loose on, say, the Olympic Peninsula would be lengthy. It would be expensive. It would be slow. It would be boring. And it would make for lousy television. Which, in the end, is what this show is. And that, vague rustlings in the distance aside, is all it needs to be.
I dig Bigfoot. Have ever since I saw the Bigfoot episode of In Search Of. I've got a shelf full of books on cryptozoology. I've exchanged emails with Loren Coleman. I know who Jeff Meldrum is. I have promised to take two small boys "Bigfoot hunting" (read: walking around a local park with a camera) at earliest opportunity. I find the question of the possible existence of unknown large primates to be an interesting scientific issue. I know multiple people who claim to have seen Bigfoot or one of his near relations, and I find their stories interesting.
I also watch Finding Bigfoot.
I do not do this in hopes of seeing the cast of the show actually find a sasquatch. I know this will not happen. I know this because it is a television series, and thus its main goal is to ensure continued production. That means more episodes wherein our four noble squatchers go to various locations, talk to various people, and fail to find Bigfoot. Indeed, one might note that their methodology - short investigations with camera crews, sticking to roads, not putting up trailcams for extended surveys of a particular area, repeatedly yowling at each other to the point where no self-respecting sasquatch would be able to get a word in edgewise, setting off fireworks, hauling a baboon into the woods, and inviting sasquatches to a rave. The plan for next week's episode - apparently it's using a Girl Scout troop as bait - buries the needle on the Batshit-o-crazy meter, unless Bobo's right and sasquatches really love Thin Mints that goddamned much.
No, I watch it for entertainment value. I watch it for the goofy situations and the earnest believerhood of cast member Cliff and the puffed-up frothing of cast member Matt and the weary skepticism of cast member Ranae and the plain old whackadoodle of cast member Bobo. I watch it for folks trying to guess how tall something they think they saw in the dark three years prior might be, and I watch it for the sheer hilarity of watching Matt step all over his castmates in an effort to shore up his alpha male status. William Shatner used to line-count Star Trek scripts; Moneymaker line-counts sasquatch calls per episode, and nobody's allowed to howl like a wolverine gargling Top Job more than he is. And I find this hilarious, to the point where I live-tweet the show under the hashtag #FindingBigfoot, because, hey, it's a popular show and there are lots of other people out there doing the same, and social media signal amplification and all that good stuff. Honestly, most of the tweets are either from true believers or are in the same vein of gentle ribbing that I enjoy; there's about a half dozen fake Sasquatch accounts mixed in there for good measure.
But here and there, there's some folks mixed in who take things very seriously, and who are genuinely offended that the team has not yet delivered on the nonexistent promise to find Bigfoot. They are righteous, I tell you, and they are mad, and God dammit, they expect a scientific mystery decades old to be solved before the first commercial break, verifiable evidence be damned.
To which I say: God help you people, because you're missing the point. This is entertainment. The point is not to find Bigfoot. The point is to amuse us couch potatoes with the NVG-ed up misadventures of these sasquatch-hunting Beatles (Bobo = Ringo, fer sure) week after week with a formula. Real research into seriously attempting to find evidence of a large hominid loose on, say, the Olympic Peninsula would be lengthy. It would be expensive. It would be slow. It would be boring. And it would make for lousy television. Which, in the end, is what this show is. And that, vague rustlings in the distance aside, is all it needs to be.
No comments have been added yet.
